


fresh outta the oven

by kanzentai



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28615755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanzentai/pseuds/kanzentai
Summary: In which Lio learns how to make pizza.
Relationships: Lio Fotia & Galo Thymos
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	fresh outta the oven

**Author's Note:**

> here's my piece for [promezine](https://promezine.carrd.co/), which is one of the loveliest zines i've had the chance to participate in. ♥ 
> 
> thank you to the mods and also m'friend [mabs](https://twitter.com/mabs_art) for looking this over! :')

“You know what’s going to make you feel better?” Galo says with the confidence that comes from being the universe’s number one firefighting idiot.

Something explodes outside the bunk room, followed by Vinny squeaking in distress as Lucia wails about her latest robotic victim, and Remi heaves such a great sigh at this that Lio can hear it all the way here, over the sound of Varys complaining about the noise waking him from a nap. Lio, too, wants to complain about his disrupted sleep, but Ignis calls out from his office then, telling everyone to pipe down.

“What?” Lio huffs when no more explosions resound through the precinct, burying his face into a pillow when Galo plops down on the bed. Since this is Galo — weighing a hundred and seventy pounds yet lacking a single ounce of common sense — he's talking to, Lio has no escape. "Pray tell, Mr. Thymos."

This gets a laugh out of Galo, and although Lio doesn't see it, he can _hear_ the grin that spreads across Galo’s face as he says, “ _Pizza_ , Mr. Fotia."

It takes Lio a second to process Galo’s words, but when he does, he lifts his head and blinks at Galo with tired eyes. Galo, on the other hand, tosses his motorcycle’s keys in the air, then looks at Lio with a raised brow.

With all the displeasure he can muster — having spent the entire night patrolling neighbourhoods occupied by former Burnish — Lio raises both his eyebrows in retaliation. It doesn't work like he wants it to, because he gets yanked out of bed, hauled over Galo's shoulders as the idiot yells about taking Lio to the pizzeria for lunch, and Lio doesn't know if it says more about Galo that he can lift Lio up like he’s Vinny, or about Lio because he lets him.

"Pizza?" Aina says, emerging from under a robot’s frame, absolutely unfazed by the sight of them in a terrible rendition of Lio De Galon. "I'm coming with!"

"So am I," Varys adds, looks over at Remi, and grins when he gets a resigned _sure, me too_ in reply.

Although Lio tries to mess up Galo's hair from where he's sitting on Galo’s shoulders, his stupid spikes remain standing tall as he shuffles over to the destroyed bot, sniffing at the fumes with caution. "Lucia?"

"The blast fried my PC so—" Lucia mumbles from inside the debris, scribbling away in a notepad so furiously that Lio thinks the paper might spark. "Let me write down— the bot's threshold—"

Right then, Ignis, having stepped out of his office because of all the commotion, picks Lucia up by the collar of her lab coat and holds a palm out for Vinny to hop on, and says, "I'll bring them along."

 _Great_. As if _one_ firefighting maniac who didn't understand the concept of shirts wasn't enough, now Lio has to put up with all six and a quarter of them. On a day when Guiera and Meis are in charge of overseeing things on the other side of town, at that.

When he blinks, he's already riding pillion on Galo's motorcycle. It’s a million times lamer than the one Lio could conjure before— _before_ , but he still wraps his arms around Galo as he hits the accelerator. 

They zoom past buildings undergoing renovation, areas sectioned off for repairs, research hoardings being taken down. Around him, the city still hasn’t healed all these months later. Lio closes his eyes and pushes his face into Galo's back. If Galo notices this, he says nothing; continues riding, looking forward.

While there haven’t been any issues with the former Burnish re-entering society, Lio always stays alert during their patrols, so used to the discrimination they’ve faced all their lives. And the exhaustion from spending the last night doing so seems to catch up with him now, his body growing heavier the more he breathes the city in. His grip around Galo loosens, and Galo immediately turns to a side, asks, "Hey, Lio. You good?"

Lio considers saying no; he isn't good. Not when he feels so… empty, a part of him having disappeared that day. Lio doesn't know, even now, how to come to terms with such a loss, or the knowledge that he— the _Burnish_ are no longer on the run, or that the Burning Rescue — and Galo, in particular — are making him remember what having a family was like.

"Galo!" Aina calls from her motorcycle, bringing Lio back to reality. "Hey! Galo—"

" _Race_?" Galo shouts back with a laugh. "Sure, I'll race you!"

Aina yells something that Lio doesn't catch over the sound of the motorcycle’s roaring engine, and when Galo throws a _hold on tight_ over his shoulder, Lio snorts at the way the biggest spike atop Galo's head flops around in the wind, then holds on tight.

Somewhere between breathing in Galo's familiar smell and the air of Promepolis — no longer burning like it was that day; like it was all those years — Lio finds himself smiling as he says, "This pizza better be good."

"Oh, you _bet_ ," Galo replies, slowing down once they round the corner. "I know you don’t like tomatoes, but when you taste _this_ , you're gonna wish the place wasn't—"

"Closed," Aina says over Galo's _so far away_ , coming to a stop next to them with a sour expression. "I was _trying_ to tell you that. We found out when Remi tried to reserve a table on our way here."

"You've got to be kidding me," Galo croaks in the pizzeria’s direction. "The Inferno Volcano Margherita Megamax—"

"We can drop by next week," Remi says, poking his head out of the car behind them.

Galo still looks disappointed— distraught, almost, which is a sight Lio hasn't seen since he began working on the city’s reconstruction with the Burning Rescue. He knocks on Galo's temple to get his attention, but before Lio can tell him anything, Varys says, "Hey, what do you think about..."

They follow his gaze when he trails off, and Lio’s unsure as to why Varys wants their opinions on the fire hydrant across the street, until he realizes that it’s the supermarket behind it that Varys wishes to draw their attention to.

Squinting at the store, Aina says, "You're telling us..." 

"...we go in there..." Remi continues.

When no one picks it up from there, Varys prompts, “...and buy some ingredients...”

"...and make our own pizza! That's _brilliant_ ," Galo finishes, sparkling so much that Lio almost screws up his eyes. "But where will—"

"We have an oven at home," Lio says, then quickly adds: _which Galo used as a storage shelf until I moved in_ so he doesn't panic about how _home_ is a word he doesn't flinch at anymore.

So they head there after getting everything they need, and when Galo fumbles with his keys at their door, Lucia waves a lollipop around and murmurs, "Galo really will do anything for pizza, huh?"

"Anything?" Lio asks her, even as Galo tumbles into the apartment before them, knocking over a matoi replica they’d picked up from a garage sale.

"Anything," Lucia confirms, then flumps on the beanbag near the kitchen, claiming her spot as Vinny claims his spot on top of her head.

Aina heads into the kitchen with Remi, Varys peeks into the fish tank in the living room, asks Lio if he could feed the fish because they seem hungry, and _no_ , that isn’t him projecting his own feelings on the little cyprinids.

While Lio has seen the others in and around their apartment over the few months he has been here, he hasn't seen them in here all together at once, and it overwhelms him. It makes him feel like an outsider even now, especially now.

He shakes the thought away when Lucia places her notepad on the coffee table and tucks her pen into a pocket, having written down everything she wanted to fix. When she steps towards the kitchen behind Ignis, Lio follows them with soft, unsure steps, like he doesn't know what he's doing, or what he should be doing here.

Remi pours out all the stuff they'd purchased into a bowl as Varys places the pizza stone into the oven; Vinny tugs at Lucia's hair as she moves around to grab the utensils Aina asks for, the action eerily reminiscent of the animated movie on TV last week; and Galo— in the middle of it all, looks over at Lio the moment he steps into the kitchen like he sensed his presence.

"Lio, you better be prepared for this!" Galo chirps, waving his rolling pin around like he does with the matoi tech back in the precinct, and Lio finds himself smiling despite all these weird emotions rising up within him.

Never in his life did Lio think he'd be here, sitting in a kitchen in a house he has begun to call his own, observing these people he once was at odds with, making a mental note titled _How To Make Pizza_. With a subheading that reads: _(For Galo Subjugation Purposes)_ , since Lucia said Galo would do anything for pizza, and Lucia’s never wrong about anything.

 _Preheat the stone_ , the first bullet point goes. _Knead the dough like it's that Freeze Force guy’s face_ comes next.

Aina places a few tomatoes in front of Lio and says, "Can you slice these, Lio?" as if Lio can say no to that smile, or any other in this room.

Ignis reaches for the pizza peel hidden away behind a box of unused utensils above a shelf, Lucia plugs a suspicious cable into the mixer, cackles as it spins uncontrollably. Varys swears from his spot near the stove, and Remi tugs Varys forward, holding his reddening finger under the tap. Aina grumbles about Galo's prehistoric grater while Galo laughs at her _God, you’re always like this_ , and Lio has to remind himself that he's cutting up tomatoes here, not onions.

Galo glances over at him again like he’d felt Lio’s distress, his gaze soft when Lio blinks up at him. There's something about the way he looks, about _today_ , that Lio doubts if Galo’s really doing this out of pity for him, like his stupid brain had supplied to him at the supermarket on watching the others argue over which oregano seasoning was supreme, when it feels like— 

"The sauce is burning," Ignis says, then, bringing everyone's attention to the smoke rising from the pot.

While Aina rushes to take it off the stove, Galo simply puts his hands on his hips and proclaims, “Just like my firefighter’s soul!"

It's a wonder no one smacks him on the head, but Lio doesn't blame them; it's hard to not feel fond when Galo says something like this, his eyes sparkling with mirth, bright and alive like the day they burned the world together.

_Spread the sauce evenly. Add in as much cheese as you want. Shake the peel; slide the pizza into the oven. Bake it at a temperature the Promare would giggle at. Eleven minutes, unless you want a bunch of firefighters to visit without prior notice._

As the others lounge around the house, Lio crouches in front of the oven, watching the dough rise as the timer ticks down. 10:00. 08:30. 06:00. 04:30.

It isn't the first time he's been in here to help Galo whip something up, so feeling sentimental about something like this puzzles Lio. Is it because being around the Burning Rescue makes him feel like he’s found family again, or because last night’s tiredness is getting to him, or because Galo can’t go a minute without being nice to Lio? Maybe if Lio makes him enough pizza he'll stop— 

"How's it lookin'?" Galo says, crouching beside Lio as he observes the pizza. 03:42.

 _Stupid_ , Lio wants to say, but since that isn't exactly about the pizza or Galo, he doesn't reply. Instead, he turns to Galo, frowns at the spike that makes him seem so much taller than he already is, and turns back to the pizza. 02:18. They watch the dough rise in silence, and only when Varys tells the others off for laughing at his stomach’s loud growl from the other room does Lio finally say, "Galo, you don’t have to force yourself to do this."

Galo swivels towards him at this. Lio can see his reflection move on the oven door, can feel him shift beside him, but he doesn't meet his gaze. He can't, not when Galo says, "Who said I'm forcing myself?"

"Then what's _this_?" Lio says, brows knit together.

" _This_?" Galo echoes. "What _is_ this?"

He— he doesn't sound angry, or hurt, even. Galo just sounds confused, like he honestly doesn't know why Lio feels like he's being pitied. Before Lio can say anything else, Galo continues, "I'm not—" 01:05. "I'm not making you pizza because I’m forcing myself."

"Then… why?" Lio asks, voice hoarse. It has to be the tomatoes. It’s always the tomatoes.

Galo doesn't respond, and Lio thinks wistfully, _there you go_. Going out of his way for someone— pitying someone without knowing he was doing so really is a Galo thing to do. Lio returns to stare at the timer — 00:32 — then mumbles something about heading to bed, trying to sleep off his fatigue, but Galo interrupts him with a loud sigh. He scratches his head, then frowns at Lio as he stands up.

"Listen here, Lio," Galo says, whirling around to grab the pink mitts on the island, then the peel, then the oven handle as the timer reaches 00:00. "I don't understand what you've been talking about all this while, but you're wrong. _So_ wrong."

Lio watches Galo take the pizza out of the oven, its colour and smell almost enough to distract both of them despite the weight of their conversation. Only _almost_ , though, because Galo shakes the pizza onto a plate, then says, "I care about you. In fact, we—" At this, he jerks a thumb at the hallway, where the others stand with feigned nonchalance, pretending like they haven't heard this entire conversation. "— _all_ care about you. You're Lio. The Lio to my… my De Galon. And if I want to cheer you up with pizza after you’ve had a rough night, it sure isn't because I’m forcing myself or whatever mean thing you’re thinking about yourself. Got that?"

Standing here, in a kitchen in a house he has begun to call his own, Lio looks at them— all of them, Ignis, eyes crinkling behind his sunglasses; Varys, throwing Lio a peace sign along with Lucia and Vinny; Remi, crossing his arms over his chest; Aina, shaking her head in fondness; and Galo, beaming at him like he did that day, perched together with Lio on what remained of the Parnassus,as he says, "Now, eat up!"

Lio looks at them, then at the pizza. He doesn't know if it says more about Galo that he convinced Lio to believe in him with a single grin, or about Lio for letting him. He cuts out a slice and picks it up despite the way his fingers sting at the heat. Then, when the others follow suit, he glances over at Galo, finds himself smiling.

_Keep an eye on the timer. Wait for it to cool a little— no, really, that’s what normal humans do._

_And when it’s all done, share it with a couple of firefighting idiots. It tastes better that way._

**Author's Note:**

> lio... i love u. galo... i love u also.
> 
> i'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/sharrkans)!


End file.
